Readings for Dray & Associates component of the course

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Readings for Session 1

  1. Tony Salvador, Genevieve Bell, and Ken Anderson.
    Design Ethnography. Design Management Journal, Fall, 1999, pp 35 – 41
  2. Ron Weber
    Editor’s Comments: The Rhetoric of Positivism Versus Interpretivism: A Personal View, MIS Quarterly, Vol. 28 No. 1, pp. iii-xii, March 2004
    • Theoretical. Challenges the distinction between positivism and interpretivism.
  3. Alan Cooper
    About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design, Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, 2007.

Readings for Session 2

  1. Roy Suddaby
    What Grounded Theory is Not, Academy of Management Journal, 2006, Vol 49, No. 4, 633-642
    • Theoretical. Brief overview of grounded theory concepts, critique of common errors in its practice.
  2. Sally Jo Cunningham, Chrish Knowles, Nina Reeves
    An Ethnographic Study of Technical Support Workers: Why we didn’t build a tech support digital library, JCDL ’01, June, 2001, Roanoake, Virginia (ACM 1-58113-345-6/01/0006) DOI
    • Case example. Starts by explaining why digital library seems like a natural for tech support workers, goes on to show how contextual understanding of the dynamics of their work and use of info resources shoots that idea down. Field research, leading to abandonment of the product concept.
  3. Beth Kolko, Emma Rose, Erica Johnson
    Communication as Information-Seeking: The case for mobile social software for developing regions., WWW 2007, Banff, Alberta, CA (ACM 978-1-59593-654-7/07/0005) DOI
    • Case example. Evaluates relative role of internet and mobile phones in Central Asia, makes case for “social software” development for mobile platforms. Although not main focus of research, an interesting aspect is their effort to assess real levels of internet access. Mixes qualitative, quantitative, surveys and on-the ground observation. Reflects what we call a “contextual scan”.
  4. (optional but recommended)
    Michael Quinn Patton.
    Qualitative Research and Evaluation Methods, Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA 2002.

Readings for Session 3

  1. Hugh Beyer and Karen Holtzblatt
    Contextual Design: Defining Customer Centered Systems, Morgan Kaufmann, San Francisco, 1998, Chapters 2-6 (pages 29-123)
    • Overview of contextual inquiry.

Readings for Session 4 (note: not all are required)

  1. Susan Dray, David Siegel, Even Feldman, Maria Potenza
    Why do Version 1.0 and Not Release It? Conducting Field Trials of the Tablet PC, interactions, 9(2), march/april 2002 DOI
    • Business case. Discusses advantages of naturalistic field trial for new technology, contrasts with limitations of usability testing. Field trial, some discussion of hybrid methodology (how to combine training with evaluation).
  2. David A. Siegel, Bill Reid, Susan M. Dray
    IT Security: Protecting Organizations in Spite of Themselves, interactions, 13(3), May-June 2006 DOI
    • Case example. Examines organizational dynamics and practices re: corporate security as they affect adoption of technology based tools and practices. Interview, artifact walkthroughs, etc, but article focuses on findings re contextual dynamics.
  3. Bonnie Nardi, Diane J. Schiano, Michelle Gumbrecht
    Blogging as Social Activity, or, Would You Let 900 Million People Read Your Diary, CSCW 2004, Chicago, IL, USA. (ACM 1-58113-810-5/04/0011) DOI
    • Case example, with brief discussion of Activity Theory. Ethnographic study of blogging, leading to recommendations for features for blogging tools. Interesting question is whether and how the rich info re: emotional meaning of blogging translated into practical recommendations. Interviews and text analysis of Blog posts.
  4. Lisa Reichenbach and Amy Maish
    Larger Than Life: Bodily and Social Transitions within Type 2 Diabetes. EPIC 2006, pp. 5-18 American Anthropology Association
  5. William S. Stubblefield and Karen S. Rogers
    The Social Life of Engineering Authorizations, DIS 2000, pp 9-19. (ACM ACM 1-58113-219-0/00/0008) DOI
    • Case example. Fieldwork with engineers led to changes in design of web-based tool for creating and managing engineering authorizations. Interviews, focus groups, prototypes and participatory design.
  6. Jesper Simonsen and Finn Kensing
    Using Ethnography in Contextual Design, CACM, July 1997, Vol. 40, No. 7 DOI
    • Case example. Tries to show how ethnographic work had significant impacts on development of software tools for A “Film Board,” a public funding agency within an “unnamed” ministry of cultural affairs (authors are Danish).
  7. Melissa Cefkin, Jakita Owensby Thomas, and Jeanette Blomberg
    The implications of Engterprise-wide pipeline management tools for organizational relations and exchanges, Group ’07, 2007, Sanibel Island, FL, USA (ACM 978-1-59593-845-9/07/0011) DOI
    • Case example. In-depth analysis of CRM practices and processes in multiple divisions of a company, suggesting a typology of key dimension of difference involving fundamentally different usage dynamics for CRM tools.

Readings for Session 5

  1. Michael Quinn Patton.
    Qualitative Research and Evaluation Methods, Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA 2002.
  2. A Michael Huberman and Matthew B. Miles
    The Qualitative Researcher’s Companion

Readings for Session 6

  1. Alan Cooper
    About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design, Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, 2007.
  2. Robin Beers and Pamela Whitney
    From Ethnographic Insight to User-centered design tools. EPIC 2006, pp. 144- 154, American Anthropology Association
  3. Rachel Jones
    Experience models: Where ethnography and design meet. EPIC 2006, pp. 81-93 American Anthropology Association.
  4. Suzanne Thomas and Tony Salvador
    Skillful Strategy, Artful Navigation, and Necessary Wrangling, EPIC 2006, pp. 109-124. American Anthropology Association

Session 7

  1. Bob Gephart
    Qualitative Research and the Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Journal 2004, Vol 47, No 4 454-462
    • Theoretical. Discussion of what makes for credible, rigorous qualitative work.
  2. A Michael Huberman and Matthew B. Miles
    The Qualitative Researcher’s Companion

Some other resources

  1. Alan Cooper
    About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design, Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, 2007.
  2. Bonnie Nardi and Justin Harris
    Collaborative Play in World of Warcraft, CSCW’06 Nov4-8, 2006, Banff, CA (ACM 1-59593-249-6/06/0011) DOI
    • Case example. Analyzes social interactions in WoW and makes case not for design changes in WoW, but for applicability of the collaboration tools to other domains, and to debunk idea that online gaming is isolating. Online participant observation, interviews.
  3. Paul Dourish
    Implications for Design, CHI 2006, Montreal, CA (ACM 1-5953-178-3/06/0004) DOI
    • Theoretical—relationship between ethno and design. Discusses appropriate relationship between ethnography and design. Critiques idea of goal of ethnography being to provide discrete list of “design implications.” His point seems somewhat obscure, but this is possibly because of semantics of ethnography (which he is defining in an orthodox sense) and design (which he is defining narrowly, as separate from product strategy). He seems to imply Ethnography’s place in HCI is to provide understanding that is deeper than “design implications,” but is vague about what that is.